Jonathan Turley: A Majority of Stanford Students Support Canceling Conservative Speakers

 

I've blogged before that the biggest problem that America faces is that our elites don't believe in American values such as free speech, individual liberty or the free enterprise system.  

Jonathan Turley's April 19 column provides more evidence of the elite disdain for these American values. 

Stanford University is at the very top of the hierarchy of American higher education.  Holders of Stanford diploma are well represented among those in  top government jobs, in the tech sector, and on Wall Street.  So what Stanford students and grads think matters a lot. 

According to a recent survey by FIRE, Stanford students have little tolerance for those with views other than their own. 

Last year Stanford students shouted down Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law School.  Instead of defending the Judge, Law School Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach criticized the Judge for appearing and sided with the students disrupting his speech.  Oh the irony!

Turley writes of the findings of FIRE's 2024 survey of the views of Stanford students regarding free speech:  

FIRE released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” including 54% of Stanford students said that Judge Duncan’s visit should have been canceled by the administration.

Another 36% stated that using physical violence to shutdown a campus speaker is “always,” “sometimes,” or “rarely” acceptable.

75% said the same about shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking.

Not surprising, only six percent of conservative students now feel comfortable disagreeing with professors.

The survey is consistent with other surveys and polling in higher education.

The early years of adulthood play a critical role in the formation of our attitudes toward ourselves, others and society at large.  That so many young Americans have closed themselves off to other opinions is disturbing.  That such intolerance is especially widespread among the elites bodes ill for the future of America.

Though framed in terms of consideration of those with different view on political questions, the intolerance displayed by Stanford students is unlikely to be contained to the political realm.

As rising generations today assume leadership roles in American institutions, intolerance of others is also likely to be reflected in the nature of business dealings, in the administration of government, in medical treatment, in foreign policy and in personal and marital relations.  The result: more failures of business judgement, more wasteful public expenditure, more medical errors, more war and regional conflict, and more unhappy marriages and personal relationships.         

John Stuart Mill wrote about the role of free thought and speech in human progress:

It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those which they are familiar. ...  Such communication has always been, and is peculiarly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress.  (Principles of Political Economy, 1848) 

Higher education has traditionally been viewed as a means for the advancement of human progress.  Today, in many ways, it is the reverse.  The intolerant attitudes acquired and reinforced through one's time on the campuses of Stanford and other elite universities are a barrier to human progress.  A barrier to progress created by the universities themselves and the faculty and administrators that run them.    

        

Slouching Towards 1984

 

The US House of Representatives voted 273-147 last week to extend the many tenacles of the surveillance state by forcing businesses as mundane as fitness centers or hardware stores to assist the NSA in warrantless searches of US citizens.

The founders would be aghast. 

The framers of the United States Constitution were so concerned that the government would intrude on the private lives of citizens that they wrote a prohibition on warrantless searches of persons and property into Article 4 the Constitution.  Article 4 states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Yet warrantless searches of the electronic communications of US citizens is exactly what this bill allows. 

Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center explained in a series of posts on Twitter/X

I’ll explain how this new power works. Under current law, the government can compel “electronic communications service providers” that have direct access to communications to assist the NSA in conducting Section 702 surveillance.

In practice, that means companies like Verizon and Google must turn over the communications of the targets of Section 702 surveillance. (The targets must be foreigners overseas, although the communications can—and do—include communications with Americans.)

Through a seemingly innocuous change to the definition of “electronic communications surveillance provider,” an amendment offered by House intel committee (HPSCI) leaders and passed by the House vastly expands the universe of entities that can be compelled to assist the NSA.

If the bill becomes law, any company or individual that provides ANY service whatsoever may be forced to assist in NSA surveillance, as long as they have access to equipment on which communications are transmitted or stored—such as routers, servers, cell towers, etc. That sweeps in an enormous range of U.S. businesses that provide wifi to their customers and therefore have access to equipment on which communications transit. Barber shops, laundromats, fitness centers, hardware stores, dentist’s offices… the list goes on and on. 

It also includes commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every day—offices of journalists, lawyers, nonprofits, financial advisors, health care providers, and more.

Ron Paul explains how the National Security Agency and other elements of the surveillance states have used loopholes in Section 702 to conduct surveillance of US citizens.

Section 702 authorizes warrantless surveillance of foreign citizens. When the FISA Act was passed, surveillance state boosters promised that 702 warrantless surveillances would never be used against American citizens. However, intelligence agencies have used a loophole in 702, allowing them to subject to warrantless surveillance any American who communicated with a non-US citizen who was a 702 target. Intelligence agencies could then also conduct warrantless surveillance on any Americans who communicated with the new American target. This Section 702 loophole has been used so often to subject Americans to warrantless wiretapping that it has been referred to as the surveillance state’s crown jewel.

Section 702 has already been widely abused by the NSA, FBI and other spying agencies.  Just last year court documents revealed that the FBI had improperly searched for information on US citizens 278,000 times including searches for information on January 6 defendants and the killing of George Floyd. 

Young Americans should be particularly concerned.  It’s no fun to be watched by the government all the time.  Just ask Chinese dissidents like When Chen. 

When Chen picked up his phone to vent his anger at getting a parking ticket, his message on WeChat was a drop in the ocean of daily posts on China's biggest social network.  But soon after his tirade against "simple-minded" traffic cops in June, he found himself in the tentacles of the communist country's omniscient surveillance apparatus.  Chen quickly deleted the post, but officers tracked him down and detained him within hours, accusing him of "insulting the police".  He was locked up for five days for "inappropriate speech".

George Orwell wrote of the dangers of mass surveillance in Nineteen Eighty Four.  His 1949 novel was intended as a warning of how the surveillance state would crush the individual and free thought.  Unfortunately, in modern Washington, Orwell’s novel is more like a “how-to” manual.   

 

 

 

Slouching Towards 1984: Shocking Numbers of Young Americans Embrace the Surveillance State

 

One wonders whether they still teach Orwell in schools these days.  Almost one in three members of Gen Z says that they would accept government surveillance cameras in their home.    

A new survey from the Cato Institute asked Americans about their view on government surveillance and central bank digital currencies. 

The survey found that large numbers of young Americans would be happy having Big Brother watching them. 

Almost one third of 18- to 29-year-olds said that they would favor having the government install surveillance cameras in their home to monitor them for illegal activity.    Only 6 percent of Baby Boomers would allow Big Brother into their homes.    

It’s not just their homes.  Gen Z also is happy having Big Brother in their pockets.  32 percent of Gen Zers support CBDCs.

In fact, 24 percent of Gen Z would support CBDC even if it meant that government could freeze the bank accounts of political protestors. 

That’s exactly what happened in the Canadian trucker protests in which the government ordered banks to freeze the accounts o truckers and other protesting the government’s authoritarian (and unnecessary) COVID lockdown. 

History shows that when governments have the ability to squelch dissent they will do it. 

Whether it is the East German Stasi, the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system or the National Security Agency’s domestic bulk data collection program (for which they lied to Congress about its existence), the tools of government surveillance are the tools of totalitarianism. 

 

63 percent of U.S. College Students Feel Intimidated Sharing Opinions in Class

The College Fix reports on the results of the annual William F. Buckley Institute's survey of college students.

The story from the College Fix is available here.

Also from the survey, slightly more students would prefer to live under socialism than capitalism.  

Here is the link to the full survey results.

Good News: A Majority of Young Canadians Support the Right to Protest of the Freedom Convoy Truckers

A new poll by the Angus Reid institute, a non-profit public opinion research organization, shows that a majority of young Canadians support the right of Freedom Convoy truckers to express themselves.

Support among young Canadians is much higher than among the old. 

The survey asked Canadians whether they felt that the right to protest outweighed the economic disruptions from the protest.  Results by age and gender appear below:

The results are both surprising and encouraging. 

Surprising because young people are often viewed as more supportive of authoritarian measures than the old. 

Encouraging because, at least on this issue, a solid majority of young Canadians support freedom of expression.  In that context, the results of the Angus Reid poll are very good news indeed. 

The authoritarian crackdown of the Trudeau should be revulsive to anyone who believes in free expression and individual rights.  Trudeau is revealing himself as nothing more than a pretty, elitist dictator. 

The Trudeau regime has instigated violence against protesters, trampled innocent civilians with horses, and frozen the bank accounts of thousands of supporters of the protests.

And then there is the blatant hypocrisy of Canada’s boy Prime Minister who swooned for Black Lives Matter but uses the jack-booted power of the state to crush peaceful protests by ordinary working-class Canadians.  

Hopefully, young Canadians will lead the charge for freedom in Canada.  Unlike their elders, young Canadians appear to have their heads on straight.